Positive Change: The Future Is Looking Bright for the Canadian Urban Forest Network

Adrina Bardekjian

Positive Change: The Future Is Looking Bright for the Canadian Urban Forest Network

Our goals for the CUFN (Canadian Urban Forest Network) and CUFS (Canadian Urban Forestry Strategy) are to foster greater learning, both nationally and internationally, provide a space for people to come together and build a national urban forestry community.

Thanks to the generous support from TD Bank, positive changes have been made in the past two years. Highlights include:

Building partnershipswith national and international organizations, including the Canadian Forest Service, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Arbor Day Foundation.

Rebranding the Canadian Urban Forest Network website, increasing and tracking our membershipthrough the listserv. We now have over 800 members across Canada and we’re seeing more activity through our social media pages (Facebook and Twitter).

Launching a platform to submit news and stories.One of the challenges we have is that communities do not always have access to information from different areas across Canada. We wanted to provide a space for organizations and individuals to share their stories and ideas. Submissions range from personal anecdotes to reflections on scholarly research.

Being involved in two research projectsthis year: the first was a national needs assessment of municipal urban forestry with the Canadian Forest Service and the second is a National survey of urban forestry research needs with a student from Laval University.

Working to build partnerships with academic institutions to encourage departments to include urban forestry within their curriculum. A recent example is the University of British Columbia’s Bachelors in Urban Forestry.

1 Comment

Debi Roskam

I would like to see trees planted on every school ground across the country. Starting with kindergarten to grade 5 groups. Teaching children the importance of trees as well as providing children with a healthier environment to play in. Less pavement, more grass & trees. Joni Mitchell was ahead of her time when she wrote the song, "They Paved Paradise".